


A Coda for Kathryn and Iliam

by Curator



Series: Onassis [4]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s03e15 Coda, F/M, Happy Ending, commenter request, references episode, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: On her deathbed, the alien Kathryn has met once before makes her an offer.This is the final story in the Onassis series.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Original Character(s), Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Series: Onassis [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637395
Comments: 20
Kudos: 23





	A Coda for Kathryn and Iliam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jane99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jane99/gifts).



> For Jane99, who wanted a happily ever after for Kathryn and Iliam.

It’s dark.

Tom’s hand shakes in hers.

The faltering beep of her vital signs becomes a droning whine.

“You can stay as long as you like,” the doctor says and Kathryn feels the slight pull of Tom’s fingers as he nods. She hears the doctor’s footsteps and the hiss of the door closing.

_ Kat-tryn. _

Her eyes open and he’s standing on the other side of her biobed, healthy and strong. 

“Iliam?” It’s been days since she had the strength to speak but her voice flows easily, like it used to. “How?”

He bends and his lips are on hers. 

Warm. 

Soft. 

Slightly salty. 

_ Talk to me this way. _

She’s about to tell him she can’t, that her brain was damaged and telepathy is impossible, when the thought slips from her mind, _I’ve missed you so much._

His fingers tangle in her hair as the kiss deepens. _I know._

The hand that isn’t holding Tom’s finds Iliam’s chest and she pushes against firm muscles she never thought she would touch again. 

He straightens.

“This is impossible.” Blue eyes meet green ones. “You died fifty years ago.”

_ Yes._ His fingertip trails along her jawline. _But more than a decade before that, you almost died on the cold ground of a planet deep in the Delta Quadrant. Do you remember the alien presence the Doctor discovered within your cerebral cortex?_

Kathryn perceives her throat to constrict and her heart to hammer. That alien fed on the energy of the about-to-die. She leaps off the biobed and reaches for her husband. 

“Tom —”

But her hand goes right through him. His gaze doesn’t waver from the biobed and the wet streaks down his cheeks don’t change. 

_ He can’t hear you. He can’t see you. Don’t you remember? _

Kathryn’s attention is on her hand, though, not the alien that has taken on Iliam’s form.

Bulges of blue veins are smooth. 

Dry skin has become supple.

Her fingers move freely, no trace of arthritis. 

Then there is an image in her mind and it’s of herself, gazing at her own hand in wonderment. Her hair is auburn, not silver, and her body is strong like it was when she was middle-aged. 

When she was married to Iliam.

_ Is this pleasing to you? _

The alien is smiling and it’s Iliam’s white teeth, Iliam’s arced lips, Iliam’s chiseled cheeks. Every detail is so achingly perfect that Kathryn yearns to caress his bald head, to stroke his thick eyebrow with her thumb. 

But he’s not Iliam.

Her arms cross.

_ I have been waiting for a long, long time — undetectable, deep in your nervous system. You have taught me so much, Kathryn, about honesty and how not to be afraid. I come to you now with the promise of more life before you die. _

“What you’re proposing isn’t real.”

_ No._ His head shakes. _It’s not. This is what’s real._

The alien motions toward the biobed, toward Kathryn’s withered body, last breaths wheezing in her lungs, Tom’s aged hand holding hers. 

_ If you do not wish to come with me into my Matrix, we both will die. All I can offer you is a deeper experience of life and, in that way, you preserve my existence while enhancing your own. _

What Kathryn perceives as her lips press together, bitten gently by what she perceives as her teeth.

“I arranged to donate my body to science. If I go with you, what happens to the analysis of my remains?”

_ There would be no difference. I am not the disease that killed you, Kathryn. I have eluded your doctors for six decades. I won’t be detected now. _

The Matrix appears, as blinding white as she remembers. 

_ You can live again in your fondest memories. _

The hospital room dissolves around her and Kathryn is in the bathroom she and Iliam shared in the house on Alameda Island. A brush is in her hand and she’s pulling it through her hair with quick, even strokes.

Iliam walks in through the bathroom doorway, then steps backward. 

“Kathryn,” his voice rises in worry, “what is it you doing?”

She turns. “I’m brushing my hair.”

He stares.

Questions tumble out. Does this hurt? Is the same procedure applied to hair on the body? How often is this done? What is the course of action for hairs that remain within the brush?

By the time Kathryn has explained everything, Iliam is standing behind her, the brush in his hand, and they’re both laughing as auburn locks straighten, then spring upward as bristles pull and release her hair.

“This is a delightful ritual!”

She turns and her arms curve around his muscular torso. He dips and she tastes the salt of his lips, then his tongue. They haven’t been dating for very long and she still gets dizzy every time they kiss.

But she opens her eyes and Kathryn is in the hospital room again, her wrinkled body on the biobed, Tom holding her aged hand while she stands a few meters away, looking and feeling more than fifty years younger. 

The Iliam-alien tilts his head.

_ Will you come with me? _

She inhales. 

Exhales. 

Looks to the man whose hair once was blond. His lips may not be salty, but they have been warm and loving for so many decades. 

“I need a minute.”

She walks on strong legs and her young hand cups Tom’s lined face.

“I have loved you deeply for so very long. Thank you for loving me back, for taking care of me when I was sick, for bringing the richness of your imagination and thoughtfulness into my life.”

She wants to say more, but words get stuck in what she perceives as her throat. Kathryn aches to truly touch Tom, to hold him, to make love to him one more time. 

But her chin juts toward the alien. 

“I’m not going to exist in memories. If you’ve been living in my nervous system for all these years, then you know what I want.”

The bald head nods. 

_ Then that is what you shall have. _

Pale fingers lace with tan ones and Kathryn enters the Matrix.

***

Time is a strange concept in the Matrix.

It might have been an hour. 

It might have been a thousand years. 

But in that place between life and death, Kathryn gains what she lost when the _Daystrom-H_ was destroyed. The alien can’t help but give her more, though, to show his appreciation by carefully weaving her wildest dreams into what Kathryn perceives as reality.

Iliam comes home, full of stories about his mission, pride in his team’s accomplishments, excitement for the analysis phase of their discoveries.

Kathryn shares her ideas for the Advanced Borg Studies class Starfleet Academy has asked her to teach for the first time. As he listens, Iliam eats the Deltan seaweed she bought for him at the galactic market and he pronounces it delicious and his wife the most thoughtful.

_ I am thoughtful._ She accepts a bite of seaweed he offers her. _And you know what I’m thinking._

He sends her a mental image of their bedroom, of clothes discarded on the floor and their pleasure-flushed bodies joined and trembling, Attachment necklaces gleaming.

She nods. He’s only been away for a few weeks, but she’s missed him so much.

He places the remaining seaweed in the food stasis unit. 

She leads him upstairs, drops to her knees, caresses him, tastes his salt, tumbles after him as he pulls her into bed. His tongue laps the hollow of her collarbone, the fullness of her breasts, the tightness between her legs. He pushes into her and they arc like waves that could be the waters of Delta IV or the wind-tossed cornstalks of Bloomington, Indiana.

There is no bracelet in this reality, only stars above and around them, sweat and fluid and cries of delight. There are love-filled days and nights, sunrise runs around the island, productive work, and time together to talk and share and love and laugh.

One morning, Kathryn wakes up and everything is monochromatic. She tugs Iliam’s hand. 

_ Something’s wrong. I can’t see color. _

He leaps out of bed. _Have the waters given us their gift?_

_ What? _

He’s pulling on pants, handing her a clean uniform. _Starfleet Medical. We must go._

The pregnancy scan is positive. 

She develops human symptoms, too, but telltale signs of a Deltan fetus — loss of color vision, aching shoulders, increased sensitivity to animals’ emotions — persist for the entire fifteen weeks of the first Deltan-human pregnancy ever recorded.

Then the second. 

And the third.

The children are sensitive and sweet, bald and brilliant. One is pale with auburn eyebrows and the other two have their father’s darker features. Iliam sings them Deltan lullabies and Kathryn teaches them to play tennis. Their grandparents and village community on Delta IV are as loving as their Earth family and the children of two worlds grow into adults who find their homes among the stars.

Kathryn and Iliam study MACHOs and nebulas. They enjoy the riches of the cosmos and each other.

One evening, as sunset paints their bedroom in purple hues, Iliam turns his aged face to Kathryn, his hand tangled in hair that has long since turned silver. _The alien wishes for you to know that your life force is among the most delightful he has ever experienced. But it is waning. How would you like it to end, my love?_

Restored memories flood into her mind.

Her eyes widen.

Then Kathryn sends the Iliam-alien a mental image. His thick eyebrows rise. 

_ After all this time, my love, you still manage to surprise me. _

She leans in to taste salty lips for the last time.

When she opens her eyes, the image has become her reality. It’s jumbled and out of time, but Kathryn doesn’t care. 

She’s on the bridge of _Voyager._

Tom is at the conn. Not the Tom of those days, the one she had a crush on but would never attempt to date because it wouldn’t be appropriate. The Tom she sees is the one she fell in love with slowly, when she buried her nose in the pillow that smelled like him in her quarters on the _Ramon_ , when he showed up at her door in San Francisco like she hadn’t dared to hope he would, when they shared merlot and peonies and the tumbling waves of San Francisco Bay.

“Heading?” he says, and smiles his Tom-smile of mischief and love.

She’s in her admiral’s uniform, but she strides across the bridge like she did when she was a captain. Tom considered _Voyager_ some of the best times of his life and he helped her remember the camaraderie, the sense of purpose, the excitement of those days. This is her ship and her love and her last moments — on her terms.

“That way,” she points, “and straight on until morning.”

The viewscreen shows the brightness of Earth’s sun.

Tom locks in course and speed.

It’s just the two of them. Tom swivels and she sits on his lap, her legs wrapped around his hips. Their arms encircle each other and his lips are warm on her neck and she watches the viewscreen as the display becomes impossibly bright and the alien, strengthened by the most vibrant mind he has ever known, moves on to usher another soul into death.


End file.
